Radio Sandwell News

Liam Adams convicted of raping and abusing daughter

Liam Adams, a brother of Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams, has been convicted of raping and abusing his daughter.

Adams, 58, from Bernagh Drive, Belfast, was found guilty of ten offences, including rape and gross indecency, against his daughter, Aine Adams.

The abuse was committed over a six-year period between 1977 and 1983, when she was aged between four and nine.

Aine Adams said she could begin her life at 40 and "lay to rest the memory of the five-year-old who was abused".

In a statement, read out by a police officer, she said: "I do not see this verdict as a victory, nor a celebration, as it has taken its toll and has caused hurt, heartache and anguish to all those involved."

Aine Adams had waived her right to anonymity throughout the trial.

On a rainy day in Dundalk, County Louth, in 2000, Liam Adams confessed to one incident of sexual abuse of his daughter Aine, according to his older brother, Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams.

In 2007, after Sinn Fein voted to accept the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Gerry Adams made his first statement to police about the abuse allegations.

It was not until 2009, nine years after that walk in the Dundalk rain, that the Sinn Féin leader told the police, in a second statement, that his brother had confessed to him.

In the Belfast in which Gerry Adams came to prominence during the Troubles, many issues, not least child sex abuse, had been hidden by the fog of war.

Liam Adams consistently denied the charges throughout the two-week trial.

Birth

However, a jury of nine men and three women convicted Adams on all charges, following four hours of deliberation, with a majority verdict of eleven to one.

Details of the abuse were outlined during the trial including how Aine Adams had been raped while her mother gave birth in hospital to her brother.

Giving evidence in his own defence, Liam Adams said the abuse did not happen.

The court also heard how Gerry Adams had accompanied his niece, Aine, and her mother to Buncrana in County Donegal to confront Liam Adams about the allegations.

She was just 13 but although she made a complaint to the police in 1987, she did not pursue it until 2007 when Liam Adams was arrested.

The allegations were first reported when his daughter took part in a documentary in 2009 for Northern Ireland's independent, commercial television station, UTV.

Second trial

This was the second trial. The first trial collapsed in April for legal reasons.

Adams handed himself in to police in Dublin in 2010 after a European arrest warrant was issued by the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

He was extradited to Northern Ireland in November 2011 after losing a legal battle to remain in the Republic of Ireland, where he had been living.